Go team!

I'm computerless, almost. I have this little flat iPad which is part wonderful conciliation and part terrific annoyance in it's frustrating touch screen keyboard... Not the least bit interesting or important enough for a blog post but here we are. I just got attacked in the eye by some large stinging bug. My left pinky toe is broken, I think, and have furthered the injury into the whole side of my foot by working on it and then walking all day through gritted teeth and moments of angry hysterics. Hello Friday the 13th. I am now relegated to the downstairs lacking tv and really comfort because everyone else is asleep and whatever. I'm slightly bitter, no kidding, and now my eye is severely stinging and swelling. The only bit of relief is the emotional vomiting I'm exercising here and now. In a few short words I am: Frustrated, restless, lonely, annoyed and probably a little buzzed off red wine I should most definitely not be drinking for the sake of the inevitable migraine I am to experience tomorrow am. There it is. Motherhood at it's finest.

All I Need Is A Little....

Tessa's last day of pre-k

So I'm trying to teach patience to Tessa. A four going on fifteen year old. Her sighs are about as heavy as a brick and her whine could cut glass. It cuts me, it tears me up and it destroys my patience along with any chance of avoiding the whole "do as I say not as I do" dilemna. I whine when I ask her to stop whining. It's awful and redundant and completely unhelpful.  She's as lost as I am these days I know.  When we finally get a chance to actually talk about how she's been feeling and why she's such a case lately she just holds on to me. In those moments I feel like crying too. She's so lost with this whole growing up thing and so am I. What in the world am I supposed to expect of a little ball of craziness but utter craziness? At the end of the day I'm often so short tempered I feel like I'm imploding. By the time Jason's home I'm the one whose got crazy eyes and the kids are exhausted from being restrained all day long. And that restrain generally consists of trips to a pond where I restrain them from drowning themselves, walks where I restrain them from running in front of cars because they have no idea of staying on the side of the road or holding my hand in a parking lot and trips to the supermarket that were it unnecessary to eat I would avoid like the freaking plague. I mean really. We are a total of three whole school days off into the summer and the thrill is long gone.

The weekend on the other hand was fabulous. We had Uncle Brett to entertain us and then Grammy and Bestefar to cling to and to finally get projects done with. Tomorrow is scary openness but in a few short days we'll be headed to Providence with all the Palmers for a week of escape and cousin face time. So I'll breathe in and out. Ten deep breaths like Tessa and I do whenever she starts to freak out because she can't pet a snarling dog. Oh my.

In other news.... I though I should take a toll of Thatcher's complete vocabulary at this time.  He says Mom (not mama, his choice not mine), Da, Teh-teh (Tessa), hi-ya! (very loudly), buh-bye (very softly), no (in variations but generally very short and cute), uh-oh! (often), oh (when he understands) and OW! (very often). He mumbles to himself and laughs a lot (I wonder who that came from?) and has some of the most incredible conversations with Tessa which go something like this: 

Thatcher: "bahbahmehmehmeh!" 

Tessa: "No hatcher! You can't ride a horse yet, you have to ride a pony! You're too small!"

Thatcher:  "NO!"

Tessa:  "YES!"

Thatcher: "NO!"

Tessa:  "Someday you can ride a big horse too. I promise."
Thatcher: "oh."
It's the best. And so life with babes goes. Two parts madness, one part joy, one part humor, served over melting time.

Giving In without Giving Up

The kids just left the house, a neighbor picked them up and carted them off. "Good luck!" I exhale to her as I wave and head in for a moment of silence and iced coffee. I'm shaky, partly because I've neglected my B-12 requirements for the past month or two and am nearly passing out  with chronic fatigue, but also because I feel this silence deepening and it's slightly disconcerting. Tessa's last day of pre-school ever is this coming tuesday, then summer vacation (a chaos before the quiet) and then full day kindergarden.  I look at Thatcher and wonder how in the world we'll make it for 7 full hours a day without her. She is the driving force in this house I'll admit. She is my energy when I have none. She forces me up, moves me out and manipulates my body into whatever she thinks it should be at the moment... games player, house cleaner, experimental lunch lady. She plans our days by playdates and pond trips and playground runs.  She never admits to being tired and she's happy to point out my dark circles. For the few hours I'm alone with Thatcher each weekday morning we have our slow going routine; clean, eat omelet, his show during my shower, do laundry and pick up Tessa. It's light and easy and familiar and I'm also happy to break it up with the return of my girl before lunch. I am terrified at the thought of leaving her in the hands of someone else for seven full hours. My parents are the only people who have ever spent that much time with her alone and that was once, on the night Thatcher was born. And that's why right now I'm spinning. They're out in someone else's car, going to a softball game, a middle school awards ceremony and I'm off to work. We've got different lives and that's becoming clearer. They are little people growing up and away, they are not just extensions of me. And yes, I love the quiet, I appreciate this moment without screaming or whining or nagging or fussing or crying for background sounds and maybe while she's away at school next year our relationship will blossom. She'll stop asking for babysitters, she'll be happy to be home with just her family. Thatcher may even get a chance to learn how to talk! Life is crazy and parenthood is like admitting yourself to a torture chamber sometimes but I don't know how else to live it anymore. Before I know it they'll both be in full day school and I'll have to re-acquiant myself with the world of adults. I'll have to learn how to have a cohesive conversation again. I'll have to start doubling up on the B-12.

Rainy Spring Days

everything is grey misty green, a cloudy version of neon. forsythia and daffodils gone by. the time for yellow blooms seems to have passed and now we wait for the sun to break through again, the ground to finish it's thaw and to plant our too big seedlings. as we wait we forage, bake, stomp in puddles, gather bouquets, utterly filthify ourselves in mud, turn the compost. beanie gathers grubs for her hens and minnow eats and eats and eats the eggs. they both grow and grow and grow. there's no season for rest in that process of theirs. time moves on in quiet charted mornings, in the swarming of weekend cousin and grandparent visits, night time rituals, but mostly expansive afternoons of lolling around the field and yard. with photographs the only thing to remind us later that those slow moments are our real lives.

To Hens and Health

Tessa called Saturday our "first farm day" and although we're a far cry from actual farming I think we're all  experiencing a renewed sense of commitment to the well being of our family health. I want these kids to feel connected to where their food comes from year round, not just through the occassional farmer's market where we buy a few greens here and there and maybe some maple syrup and then guiltily head to Hannaford's for the deals. I am a farmer's market fiend but the obsessive penny pincher in me can not pay $5 for a tomato and even Jason has a hard time dishing out so much dough for meat. I've started plants way too early with high hopes that our third gardening season will  reap more than a few handfulls of arugala. To ensure some kind of home grown food we've started with chickens, Jason's planning the sheep pen and Tessa's got cows and horses tallied up in her mind but as far as I'm concerned a dog, a cat, five chickens, two wild younguns and two aging dreamers fill this patch of eden well enough for the moment.

Minnow Turns Two

And now you're two! I absolutely can not believe it. When we woke up this morning, or when you woke me up this morning with a measuring spoon in one hand and a bottle of children's tylonel in the other, I thought what an amazing person you are. My little Thatcher, so ready to take care of yourself, to let your needs be known even before you can speak. There's a clarity in you, in your sense of the world and what you need from it that radiates from you. Yes, you get frustrated with us. I can't imagine how silly we seem sometimes, talking and talking, spewing out all sorts of words and still not understanding you sometimes. We're all getting there though, you're showing us how everyday. Tonight we "wow"ed back and forth until we were both laughing so hard, your sense of humor is so rich, your smile so contagious.
This day two years ago was one of the best and clearest days of my life. You pushed your way into this world in just over an hour, you came faster than anyone expected and the mid-wife had to come running just to make it in time. I'll always remember that minutes before you were born I called out "it's a boy!". I just knew it, I knew you already. I feel like we've known eachother much longer than these quick two years. When you fall asleep in my shirt, when you lead me around by my hand, when you hug my neck so tight it's like you've been doing it all for thousands of years.
So today we played it easy, just the four of us. We flew a kite, read books at the bookshop, got chickens (!) and celebrated with strawberry shortcake. Another perfect and luxuriously simple day to kick off a great year. Happy Birthday my Minnow.

A Year

So it's been a year. I don't know if I have the words to explain what it is that I'm feeling. The normalcy that has set in day by day is unsettling. It feels wrong to let her be gone. To move on. But what else? I've stopped crying daily, obsessing, wondering who everyone else's "Kristin" would be. A sick game I play with myself to feel ok in this anger. That other people would ache this bad if their soul sister left. And I am angry. I let myself really feel it yesterday for the first time in ages and it scared me to pieces. I was literally drowning in it. I escaped to the woods to gasp for air and plopped down imagining myself chopping down the entire forest. The rage was so foreign and terrifying. I was so lost that when I came back in I couldn't look anyone in the eyes. I curled up in bed, closed curtains, my children calling for me from downstairs, Jason making dinner, trying to keep them from being scared of the look of me, sheltering them from my despair.

Today was different. We all spent the day together. Walking quietly through the woods, running errands, driving backroads, making dinner. I tried not to sink in while allowing myself to feel her presence. She wants me to be happy. To be a good mother. To live the life we imagined we'd be living as mothers when we dreamed of it years ago. Even in our wildest days we dreamt of this life. A simple one that included woods and babies. Some animals! Chickens perhaps... So here I am... living it. And there she is in the wind....